Independent Learning

CPD session 9.10.08

Outline

• Developing thinking

• Developing learning

• Emotional Intelligence

• Some strategies

Developing thinking

• The brain is complex, so teaching students to maximize their thinking potential is not straightforward

• So obsessed with `what’ that we forget `how’

• `What would they learn from it?’

Life Experiences

• Main influence• 5-16 years half the

waking hours of pupils are spent in school

• Opportunity to shape: Patterns of behaviour Ways of learning Thinking for life

Learning Environment

• Children’s minds respond to the `learning’ environment created by peers and teachers

• `Teachers’ views of learning (and therefore, thinking), are implicit in the way they choose to organise their classroom’ A. Craft (2000)

John Dewey

• `All the school can or need do for pupils, so far as their minds are concerned, is to develop their ability to think’

(John Dewey, `How we think’, 1910)

Lessons that teach thinking skills well:

• Have open and challenging tasks that make pupils think hard

• Encourage pupils to use what they already know• Offer opportunities to work in collaborative

groups• Encourage pupils to talk about how tasks have

been done• Produce learning outcomes at different levels

e.g. some relating to subject content, others on key skills and using the learning in other contexts

Developing Learning

• Government has extolled `lifelong learning’, which requires people to be independent thinkers

I find that whilst many 6th formers appear happy to work independently they generally have poorly developed research skills. Many seem to think that this consists of being directed to a resource and either cutting and pasting or re-writing information without any actual analysis or evaluation of either the source or content. In fact many appear to believe that it is the teacher’s job to provide any & all analysis for them and simply tell them what they need to write in their coursework/exam.

Steve Adams

Developing Learning

• When a teacher says `Let’s think about this…’ what response are they expecting?

• The right answer?

• An insight into a pupil’s misconceptions?

• Very few will expect an unprompted `I think that…because…and actually this reminds me of…’ type of response

Developing Learning

• Through primary and secondary school pupils come to understand, through experience and reflection, that teachers expect very different kinds of thinking and mean quite different things when they say `think about it’.

Emotional Intelligence

• `the leap from mere learning to using what one has learned in thinking is an essential step in the use of the mind’

(J.S.Bruner 1996)

• Thinking about your thinking is important

• Emotional Intelligence

EQ matters more than IQ

• `Emotional Intelligence is a master aptitude that profoundly affects all other abilities’ (Daniel Goleman 1996)

• Emotional Intelligence is knowing and understanding yourself well and having ways of thinking that make you self-confident and good at forming your relationships with others

• By developing your Emotional Intelligence you will be both happy and successful at whatever you do.

Truth

• Emotional intelligence (EQ) is a more important predictor of success than IQ

• There are many baseline tests based on IQ• Some students will still lack motivation and not

develop their potential because they lack the crucial emotional intelligence that is the real key in successful learning

• Apparent when they have acquired simply the skills of a photo-copier (See S. Adams’ comments above!)

Goleman

• Begins by asking the question, `What can we change that will help our children fare better in life?’

• Debate about how we can develop intelligence and help our children become motivated independent learners balances on our readiness to accept a truth long accepted by employers and the business community

What is Emotional Intelligence?

• The questions below illustrate some crucial questions about the way we all handle ourselves and our emotions on a daily basis:

What do you do when you don’t know what to do?

What do you do when you feel unhappy?How do you react when someone criticises

you?

What is Emotional Intelligence?

How do you feel when you fail?How do you make yourself stick to your

promises?What makes you get up in a morning?How do you feel when someone else is

successful?Do you treat others the way you like to be

treated?

Emotional Intelligence

• Being happy is not something to be left to chance

• Self motivation is not a quirk of our genes (e.g. internet!)

• Being a quick and confident learner isn’t only the domain of `clever’ students

• All of these things can be developed and taught to young people

• Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning (SEAL)

OH, NO, DOES THIS MEAN..?

• Not touchy-feely, happy-clappy!

• There is a clear educational and economic benefit in having young people and adults who know how to be:

ConfidentCapableHappy

Both as learners and as human beings!

Isn’t that a bit over the top?

• UK has one of the highest rates of self harm in Europe

• Estimates vary, but research suggests that 20% of children have a mental health problem in any given year

• By 2020 depression will be the second largest killer after heart disease

• Depression, stress or anxiety accounts for an estimated 10.5 million reported lost working days per year in Britain

Vision

• If we want young people: to become happy and effective adults who can make

and sustain meaningful relationships who can deal with change, failure and success who can motivate themselves from the inside who can learn, forget what they’ve learned because it’s

all changed and then re-learn who aspire to be all they can be (and be happy with what

they are regardless)Then we must send them away from us with the skills and

competence to achieve all this.

What is this to do with us?

• Maybe the alarm bells should be ringing in an academically successful school where children leave with a raft of top-notch grades?

• Clinical psychologist Oliver James claims there are studies that show that it is high-achieving girls who are especially at risk from the effects of low self-esteem and its consequent effects

What is this to do with us?

• Recent brain research about the need for positive emotions for effective learning backs up what Plato told us over 2,000 years ago:

`All learning has an emotional base’

The future

• Having emotionally intelligent and balanced children is one thing

• Not enough to prepare them for the speed of change and scale of challenge they will face beyond school

`The World is Flat’ – Thomas Friedman

• `The more we push out the boundaries of knowledge and technology…. the more those with the ability to learn how to learn, will be in demand’

The future

• The days of spoon-feeding for exam results have got to be numbered if we, in education, are going to do the job that society needs us to do!

The future

• Nuffield Review (universities report) 2006:

`Learners who may have achieved academic success at A Level…struggle to cope with the more independent and self-directed style of learning expected by higher education tutors.’

• The report goes on to point out that

`valuable time is lost at the beginning of HE courses developing independent learning skills that should have been developed already.’

The future

• It’s not even a question of, `Well, how do you do all this?’

• Rather it’s, `How come you haven’t started yet?’

• Resources – goldmine of hundreds of simple and enjoyable ideas and exercises

• Effect they have when delivered well may have repercussions far beyond the classroom and into the future

Wouldn’t it be good?

• `I can…’• `This reminds me of…’• `What I would like to know is…’• `I would like to look at…’

• `I found this out…’ and, especially…• `I’ve really enjoyed this topic!’ and• `I’ve really enjoyed teaching this!